Escorts with ESP?

AlanSmithee · 09-20-05, 03:37 AM

It's 1943 and I had pulled into position roughly 8000 meters in front of a very enticing large convoy. I dove to 90m, planning to allow the lead escort to pass over me so I could rise to periscope depth and attack the convoy from within. All was going according to plan, until the lead escort, only a few hundred meters from me, begins to ping me without warning. Suddenly I get the "Depth charges in the water!" call from my sonarman, and seconds later I take an unlucky hit and I'm dead.

Something just didn't seem right about this. How did the escort know to start pinging me? It certainly didn't detect me before I dove, or it would have come after me then. I also can't think of any obvious noise I made after I dove - silent running, never used the electric motors at all, and wasn't loading any torpedos or making any repairs. If the dive itself made any noise, I had reached 90m long before the escort began to pass over me - and the escorts didn't seem to deviate from their normal search pattern during my dive.

The only possibilities I can conceive of are 1) A stopped, silent u-boat makes a heck of a lot of noise, enough to be heard on escorts' hydophones; or 2) the escorts are also playing on less than 100% realism and are scanning around underwater through the magic of F12. :hmm: Any idea what's going on here?

Edit: I had saved immediately before being detected, and retried this scenario a number of times. I was discovered roughly 2/3 of the time. This also gave me a chance to note that the escort never actually passed over me, but always detected me at roughly the same distance, about 30-40 degrees off his bow.

09-20-05, 03:37 AM	#1
AlanSmithee Torpedoman Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Chicago Expatriate Posts: 116 Downloads: 6 Uploads: 0	Escorts with ESP? It's 1943 and I had pulled into position roughly 8000 meters in front of a very enticing large convoy. I dove to 90m, planning to allow the lead escort to pass over me so I could rise to periscope depth and attack the convoy from within. All was going according to plan, until the lead escort, only a few hundred meters from me, begins to ping me without warning. Suddenly I get the "Depth charges in the water!" call from my sonarman, and seconds later I take an unlucky hit and I'm dead. Something just didn't seem right about this. How did the escort know to start pinging me? It certainly didn't detect me before I dove, or it would have come after me then. I also can't think of any obvious noise I made after I dove - silent running, never used the electric motors at all, and wasn't loading any torpedos or making any repairs. If the dive itself made any noise, I had reached 90m long before the escort began to pass over me - and the escorts didn't seem to deviate from their normal search pattern during my dive. The only possibilities I can conceive of are 1) A stopped, silent u-boat makes a heck of a lot of noise, enough to be heard on escorts' hydophones; or 2) the escorts are also playing on less than 100% realism and are scanning around underwater through the magic of F12. :hmm: Any idea what's going on here? Edit: I had saved immediately before being detected, and retried this scenario a number of times. I was discovered roughly 2/3 of the time. This also gave me a chance to note that the escort never actually passed over me, but always detected me at roughly the same distance, about 30-40 degrees off his bow.